Vacant
by demondreaming
Summary: Cat doesn't understand death. She doesn't understand what happened to Mr. Fluffles, or where he went. Rated T.


**Disclaimer: HOW DARE YOU ASSUME I OWN VICTORIOUS. YOU BLAGGARD!**

I don't understand death. I don't get it. How can something just be gone? How can it just change to something else and not be there anymore? I don't understand.

I asked everyone about it once, one lunchtime. _What happens when you die?_ They all looked at me weird, like I'd asked something stupid, like I'd said something everyone knew the answer to, but nobody did know. Jade had smiled and jumped her arched eyebrows at me, and said, "You rot."

Tori had smiled too, but it'd only been half a one, like she wasn't sure how to, like she was just learning what a smile was. "I don't know."

Andre said his grandmother said you went somewhere better. I asked him if he thought that too, but he just shrugged and said, "I hope so, Little Red."

Robbie hid behind his glasses. "Everything goes away."

And Beck had just looked at me all concerned, and told me not to say things like that, his voice soft and careful.

I want to know. I need to know. Because I don't understand how things die. How Mr. Fluffles is dead. How one second he was my cat, and he was so cute, and fluffy, and mine, and the next he's not. How all it took was _screechbangyowl, _and now he's not anymore.

I'm crouching on the asphalt, and I'm trying to understand. And all I can hear is _Sorry, sorry, he came out of nowhere, I tried to, I couldn't_, but he didn't. He didn't come out of nowhere. He came out of somewhere. He came out of my house.

I'm crouching next to the body, and I'm confused. _The body_. And there's blood, so much blood, and it's streaming across the grey asphalt, and it's so bright and shining that I have the urge to brush it back, because it looks so much like my hair, and it's so messy. Mr. Fluffles' nose is all bloody, his teeth showing like he's angry, but he's not, he's just scared, and his eyes are glazed, like there's a sheet over them, and it looks like him, it does, but his body is twisted and mangled and I can see his bones, and there's yellow, and red, and pinky-grey, and it's not Mr. Fluffles. It's all the pieces of him, but it's not him. I want to tell him not to be scared, because things are okay.

I reach a hand out to touch his fur, to put him back together. Maybe if I just put everything back in, he'll be okay, maybe his batteries have just fallen out, and I just need to join everything back together. His fur is soft, and I can feel the lumps underneath it, see the slickness of the black fur, and it's wet, and still warm. I pull my hand back and my fingertips are red, tufts of fur sticking to them. Why can't I fix him? I put a hand down to steady myself from where I'm crouching, fingers splayed to avoid the threads of blood. It's almost reached my feet, and it's still spreading, cracking and branching out like it's a plant that's growing, and I wonder if his heart is still pumping, if maybe it's like me, and it doesn't know he's dead yet. And I want to tell it to go back in, that it doesn't belong out here, but even I know that's stupid.

Mom's pulling me up, hands clapped on my shoulders, and she's saying soft words and trying not to look at the body. _The body_. At Mr. Fluffles. Why won't she look at him? She used to all the time. She used to pet him and snuggle up to him, but now she's just got a grimace on her face like she's trying not to be sick. It's still him, he's just in more pieces. It's still him, he's just not there. The light's are out and nobody's home. She's turning me away, she's closing the curtains, and I'm not ready for the show to end. I look at the driver, and I'm begging him to tell me, to say what happened, how it happened. But he's running a hand through his sandy hair, eyes sliding away, and I don't think he knows either. Mom's spitting words about him, and they're bad words, they're angry, but it's not his fault. He didn't mean to. He didn't take Mr. Fluffles away. If he did he'd give him back, he wouldn't hide him.

Her hands keep pushing me into the house, pushing, pushing, pushing, and it's hurting my spine because her fingers are sharp, and I wonder if she's splitting me apart like Mr. Fluffles is, if she's pulling out my stuffing too, and then I won't be Cat anymore, I'll be a body. I'll be Cat's house, she's not home right now, please leave a message.

She takes my wrist, and she pulls me to the kitchen sink, and she keeps talking, and her words are buzzing around me like they're looking to sting. I wish she'd stop for a moment, because I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to concentrate, and she's confusing me again. She twists the tap on, and she's washing him off me, and the water runs pink and his fur shrinks and swirls down the drain, and he's gone.

I look at her, and her lips are still moving, still talking too fast, and she falters, eyes flicking over me like she's finally seeing, and her fingers are shaking on my wrist. "We'll bury him tomorrow, sweetie." She smiles, and why does everyone smile when they hear the word death, when they see it? Why do they pretend it's not there, like it's nothing but a word?

"We can't." I shake my head, flashes of blood in the corners of my eyes, hair spilling over my shoulders.

"Why not, honey?" Her lips are pursed, and her fingers slide away from me and go to her mouth, like she's trying to hide the shaking. Like she's trying to stop her lips from talking and her hand from touching, from doing things they don't mean.

"What if he comes back?"

And then her breath is breaking apart her fingers, she's crushing me to her, saying my name softly, like she feels sorry for me, _Oh, Cat, honey_, but I can hear what she means behind it. He's never coming back. He's moved out, and his house is up for rent. He'll never get the message I left, and all that'll move in are spiders and ants and worms.

I want to go back out there, to look at him again, but I ask to go to my room instead. I climb the stairs, and his fur is everywhere, and I'm breathing it in, he's in my lungs and on my clothes, and this is more him than the mess out on the road is. I sit on my bed, pulling my knees up to me, and I'm trying to figure it out. How did he get out? How did he escape from behind his eyes? Where did he go, _why_ did he go? He had to go somewhere, that thing out there isn't him. It looks like him, but it isn't. It's a doll that's been dropped and smashed. It's just Rex without Robbie's hand.

I study my fingers, and there's still blood around my nails, thin traces in the edges. It was so easy. I turn my hand palm up, eyes tracing the spiderweb of veins, of arteries I can make out underneath the glowing flesh. Would it be as easy for me? If I let the blood out, let it branch and spread and grow, would I go with it? Is that where he is? In his blood? Did it hurt him? Was he scared? Did he want to go, or did he hook his claws in, scrabble at the asphalt and try to stay? He was already gone when I got to him.

I want to know what happens when you die. I don't know why everyone just accepts it, why everyone pretends that they understand. No one will answer me, they just say _maybe_ and _possibly_, and_ some people say,_ and _you can never really know. _I want to know. I don't understand where my cat went. I can see him in my head, and it's him, all of him, and he's meowing and purring, and I'm twisting my fingers in his fur and whispering secrets. But that thing out there isn't him, and _I don't understand_. He's alive in my head, but he's not out there. How can he be alive in my memories when he's not now? I need someone to tell me.

I scrape away the traces of rusting blood from my fingernails, hiding behind a curtain of red velvet hair as I bury my face. I'll keep him alive in my head. Maybe that's where he went, maybe that's where he escaped to. He's safe here, I won't forget him. I'll keep him alive. He doesn't need his shell, he can live in me. I'll protect him until I escape, until I live in someone else's head. Maybe dead _is_ just a word. Dead is just something to call that broken mess. Maybe it just means, _'somewhere else_'. I'm trying to understand. It doesn't make sense, and none of the pieces fit, they're just as broken as Mr. Fluffles. It doesn't matter how I slide them around with my fingers, none of the edges match each other. There's nowhere to start, and no one to tell me I'm doing it right.

I lay back, rolling on my side and scooping up my phone from the bedside table.

_Mr. Fluffles is 'dead'._

I update the Slap, putting my mood as confused, that little face with the mouth sliding from side to side, even though my mouth is still, lips pressed together like I'm trying to keep something from spilling out. Maybe it's me, maybe I'm trying to escape and find Mr. Fluffles.

Jade's response comes almost immediately.

_Why'd you put quotation marks around dead? Is he or isn't he?_

I wish I could be like Jade, be so sure of everything. She's so confident in what she says and what she does, and she walks like the ground is something she wants to hurt, like she's pushing it down with her feet and keeping it in place. She couldn't tell me either, she just told me what happened to the shell, and I already knew that. I already felt it on my fingers.

My thumb slides over the letters in response, brow dipping down, teeth biting my lip like the muscles aren't enough to keep this thing in anymore.

_I don't know._

And no one will tell me.

**A/N: I'm not sure what this is, or what purpose this serves, but here it is.**

**Please review... for Mr. Fluffles.**

**In loving memory.**


End file.
